


It was just a nightmare

by Carlandrea



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Dipper and Mabel's parents are named Grant and Daisy, Gen, Post-Weirdmageddon, Things are not great, Trauma, Understandably, panic attacks? but not like from the perspective of the character experiencing them, the parents have no idea how to deal with this shit, they're back in piedmont
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-25 21:13:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20032429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carlandrea/pseuds/Carlandrea
Summary: “It was just a nightmare” was, apparently the wrong thing to say.





	It was just a nightmare

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dean_844](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dean_844/gifts).

“It was just a nightmare” was, apparently the wrong thing to say. Apparently, “it was just a dream, dreams can’t hurt you” was such a ludicrous concept that Mabel had laughed through her tears. She had looked away.   
“I wish Dipper was here,” she had said, and he had no idea how to respond. He could have told her that Dipper would be back from his field trip in just a few days. He could have told her that he used to be able to help her fall asleep, that she needed to learn to function without her brother someday. He could have told her that if she could just tell him what had happened to her over That Summer, he could help her too. He told her none of that, and she had curled up around a teddy bear and pretended to fall back asleep. She lay there until he left, and he had no idea how to respond.

He never knew how to respond. When they arrived home after Gravity Falls, they had seemed fine. They had run into their parents’ arms, Mabel talking a mile a minute about friends and crushes and parties that went a little off the rails and some frankly extremely concerning illegal activity, Dipper warning her not to talk about “you, know the whole thing” that Grant assumed was an embarrassing crush or story. He learned about Candy and Grenda, Mabel’s people, and about Wendy Corduroy, Dipper’s attractive and bada- cool, very cool friend who he definitely did not have a crush on. He learned about Soos and the Mystery Shack, and about how their great uncle Stan was really an old softie at heart, they swear. The kids had interrupted and talked over each other, mostly out of excitement. He had shared a knowing look with his wife whenever one abruptly elbowed the other. He had figured they would tell him eventually. He was a lot more worried about the pig.

“It was just a nightmare” must have been completely the wrong thing to say, because now Mabel was avoiding him. She stared at her phone through breakfast, then got up as soon as she was finished eating. She gathered her school supplies in silence, then mumbled a cursory goodbye as she stalked out the door.  
“Mabel- are you ok?” It was a stupid question, but the only one he could think of.  
“I’m fine.” Mabel had gotten better at lying over the summer. “Just a few more days, right?”  
“Right.” He smiled and she closed the door.

The twins had seemed older somehow, when they got back. They seemed to be braver, stronger, and for the first few days Grant and Daisy were sure that Gravity Falls had been a good idea. Both called the town home on more than one occasion, and seemed to have grown too big for spaces they once filled perfectly.

Dipper had taken his sleeping bag and moved back into Mabel’s room, and in retrospect that should have been their first warning sign. The twins seemed to startle easily, jumping at shadows and often at nothing at all. Light spilled from under the door of the room they now shared at all hours of the night. Dipper had stopped sleeping. In retrospect, a lot of things should have been their first warning signs.

Grant was an adult, with a job. He couldn’t spend the day staring at a closed door and worrying about his kids. He looked at Daisy and sighed. She echoed the sigh, and put her arms around him.   
“They’ll be ok. I’m sure they will,” she said. She was lying.   
“I know,” he said. He was also lying.

The first incident was when Dipper froze at the Eye of Providence printed on the back of a dollar bill. Grant had sent him to get snacks at the movie theater, and he’d only heard what had happened afterwards. The teenaged vendor had been freaking out, he remembered. “What do you even do when that happens? The kid just freaked- and like- that’s not- we’re not trained for that at all- we handed him his change and he was like- ‘has that always been there’ and like he was shaking? He was shaking and it was scary- ” Grant had thanked him for his concern and assured him that he had done the right thing by calling for help. They didn’t finish the movie, and Mabel held Dipper’s hand for the entire drive home. 

“Why won’t they talk to us?” He asked Daisy “Why can’t they just tell us what happened to them?”  
“We have to go to work,” she said. “We have to-”  
“But-”   
“I know”

The second incident was when Mabel had vanished. She hadn’t skipped class before That Summer. If she had, everyone assumed it would be with her friends, because Mabel was the type of person who would laugh herself sick over ice cream and try on ridiculous clothes at a thrift store because she genuinely loved them, and push her friends at an allegedly cute cashier, giggling. She was not the kind of person you found hidden in a sweater in a supply closet, and the relief he had felt at finding her was quickly crushed by just how scared she looked. Her sweater was soaked in brine and snot. When she poked out her head he saw her cheeks were irritated and red, stained with the makeup she had eagerly and poorly applied that morning. She answered none of their questions, and held her brother’s hand. 

“It was just a nightmare,” said Mabel “Nightmares can’t hurt you”   
“That wasn’t the question” said Daisy.   
Mabel glared at her knitting needles. “I’m fine, OK?” She dropped a stitch, and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like a curse word. “Just a bad dream”  
“You know,” said Grant, trying and failing to sound casual “ if your dreams are this bad, maybe you should- talk to someone?”  
“I talk to Dipper”  
“No, I mean- a therapist” Mabel fell silent for a long time.

He had asked them both what happened That Summer, and they had just looked at each other. Dipper had laughed nervously and said they had already told him all about it, hadn’t they? Mabel had agreed just a bit too quickly. 

Grant woke up when Daisy’s phone rang, and she ignored it, and then it rang again. Daisy sat up sleepily, still ignoring it. It rang a third time, and she groaned and answered it.   
“Hello?”  
“…”   
“Yep… that’s me”  
“...”  
“...Yes”  
“...”  
“I’m sorry?”  
There was a long pause.  
“WHAT?” She clapped her hand over her mouth, exhaustion morphing to alarm. “Are you sure?! That’s not-”  
“...”  
“I’m sorry, I just- that doesn’t seem like something he would do”

It had been weeks after That Summer when Grant called the Mystery Shack to demand answers. An unfamiliar voice had answered, telling him that Mr. Pines had given him the Shack because “I’m, you know, basically like Stan Jr.” Stan had given the shack to his handyman, he remembered.   
“Is this- Is this the Mystery Shack?”   
“Sure is, dude. ”   
“You’re… Zeus?”  
“Heh. no.” Grant waited for him to give his real name. He didn’t “Welcome to the Mystery Shack, dude. How can I help you?”   
“This is Grant Pines. Mabel and Dipper’s father?”   
What followed had been a supremely unhelpful phone call, ending with Zeus- or whatever his name was- yelling “Never mind all that” several times from different locations in the room, followed by dull thumps. Grant wanted to scream. Zeus had to know something. Someone had to know something.

Daisy looked at Grant “It’s Dipper.” Ice shot through Grant’s spine as his mind began to spiral to all the worst possible situations. Dipper hadn’t been completely stable when he left, but he had seemed better, and planning for the trip had seemed good for him. They let him go. They had let him go after whatever had happened That Summer. This was their fault. Whatever happened-  
“He’s ok” said Daisy. “He’s ok, he just-”  
“What?” said Grant   
Daisy was already grabbing her keys. “We have to come get him. He hit a kid. Put him in the hospital”  
““I don’t- I don’t understand,” said Grant.   
“Neither do I! said Daisy. “Mabel- ” Mabel was standing in the living room, sweater over pyjamas. “What are you doing up?”  
“Oh, just” she grinned, then stopped “rescuing my brother”  
“You- You are staying here”  
“No.”  
“Mabel!” Daisy pulled on her coat “This is a serious situation. This is a problem, and we need to deal with it. The adults need to deal with it.”  
“You have no idea how!” Mabel yelled “You have no idea!”  
“Because you won’t tell us!” said Daisy  
“I need to be there!”

The car ride was long and tense. Grant’s fingers tapped the steering wheel in a quick, frantic rhythm. Mabel stared out the window and Daisy stared straight ahead.   
“What-” asked Grant  
“I don’t know!” said Daisy. They were silent for a while.   
“Would you please stop tapping?!” said Daisy  
Grant groaned.  
“I mean,” said Grant “How does he even- he put a kid in the hospital, Daisy. How could he even do that?!”  
“I don’t KNOW!” said Daisy  
Mabel was silent. Grant was also silent, except for the tapping of his fingers on the steering wheel.  
“Stop tapping!”  
Grant stopped.   
No one said anything for the next few hours. 

No one said anything until they drove up to the visitor center and walked inside, the bright lights harsh against the late hour.  
“We’re here for… Mason Pines?”  
“Right” the receptionist scowled. She looked tired. “You should know that this is a very serious offense. Henry’s parents are-”  
“We’ll pay for any medical bills,” said Daisy. She also looked tired. “Can someone please just explain-”  
“No.” said Mabel. Grant saw that her fists were clenched and her shoulders tight. “We’re not here for explanations. We’re here to see Dipper.” She was not naturally an intimidating person. She exuded glitter and warmth and love, but her brother was in trouble, and Grant knew Mabel would die for her brother.  
“He’s right this way” said the tired receptionist. 

Dipper was staring at nothing in the wellness center lobby, and Grant’s stomach dropped. He looked hollow, and Grant had no idea what to do. Daisy took his hand, and he clung to her. Neither moved. Neither could move

“Hey dip-dop” said Mabel “You doing ok?” Dipper didn’t respond. “Ok then” she continued. “I’m just gonna sit right here if that's ok” Dipper responded for the first time, nodding mutely. “Hey” she said “I brought you this” It was some stuffed animal of hers, and he clutched it to his chest. “Can I hug you?” Dipper nodded, and she carefully wrapped her arms around him.  
Grant leaned against Daisy.  
“It’s ok” said Mabel “I’m right here” Dipper nodded again, and returned the hug.

Dipper’s science teacher, holding a cup of black coffee, explained that Dipper had attacked his roommate. It had been the middle of the night. Henry had met Dipper on the trip, she said, and they had become friends. Not close friends, but close enough that he had felt an obligation to do something when he heard Dipper crying. A hand on his shoulder was, apparently, the wrong thing to do. Henry became intensely aware of that fact when he was knocked on the ground with far more strength than he thought the wiry thirteen year old before him could possibly have, a searing pain in his left eye. His arm hit the floor before the rest of him, snapping at the abrupt stop, and pain raced through his nerves, followed by shock, and then by a brief moment of nothing at all. He would recover, assured the teacher. His arm was broken and he would have a nasty black eye, but he would recover.   
Dipper was looking at them now, which was an improvement. He held Mabel’s ambiguous stuffed animal. “I’m sorry- ”   
“Dipper” said Grant. “We love you, ok? We’re not mad, we just-” There was so much that was supposed to follow that statement, but none of it did.  
“I know” said Dipper, even though he didn’t.  
“Can I hug you?” he asked. Dipper shrugged.   
Mabel didn’t let go of Dipper’s hand.  
“It was just a nightmare,” he said. “Let’s go home”

Daisy led them back to the car. “I have Henry’s parents’ number. We’ll deal with... all of that later”  
“I- I’m so sorry” said Dipper, “I- I’ll- pay for all of the medical expenses”  
“Dipper” snapped Daisy “Do you really think we care about that at all right now?” Dipper flinched.  
“I’m sorry!”  
“That’s not-”  
“I know! I had a bad dream, and he startled me, and I freaked out, ok?”  
“No,” said Grant finally “There’s something you and your sister aren’t telling us. Something big.”  
“Don’t try to deny it,” said Daisy “Something happened to you in Gravity Falls.”  
Dipper and Mabel looked at each other. Dipper nodded  
“If we told you,” he said, “you wouldn’t believe us” Every possible alarm bell went off in Grant’s head, a shrieking cacophony of parental concern.  
“Dipper” said Daisy, her voice holding the same serrated edge. “We’ll always believe you- we promise. If anyone hurt you, no matter who it is-”  
“-We believe you” said Grant. “No matter what”   
“No matter what?” said Dipper, almost laughing.   
“Please” said Grant “just tell us what happened”

It was unbelievable. Their story was impossible, childish, absurd. He met Daisy’s eyes with concern. They still didn’t have answers, just a stream of nonsense about gnomes and monsters and zombies. Grant didn’t cry, or scream, or bury his head in his hands. Dipper and Mabel seemed so sure. They seemed clear and lucid, and they answered Daisy’s questions without hesitation. They were completely convinced that they were telling the truth, and Grant hated that he was breaking his promise.  
“And then these government guys showed up at the Shack” continued Mabel, as though she were desperately spilling some long held secret “And they arrested Stan- which, you know, it happens, but they were really serious about it and so Dipper and I tried to clear his name”  
Grant was lost. He didn’t fully understand when they had transitioned from “summer hijinks” to “government conspiracy”  
“And then a lot happened, and we thought Grunkle Stan was a master criminal, which he still might be, honestly, but it turned out he was actually trying to save his brother, which you know, I can understand-”  
“Your grandfather” said Grant carefully “wasn’t in danger”  
“No, not him,” Dipper said “Grunkle Ford”  
“Grunkle Ford?”  
“This is… a bit complicated” said Dipper. “Grunkle Stan, um, isn’t actually Stanford.”  
“I’m sorry?”  
“He’s actually named Stanley. He took his tw-” Stanley. Dipper and Mabel should not know about Stanley Pines. There was no way Dipper and Mabel could have known about Stanley Pines- he was a family ghost, discussed only in hushed whispers over slightly too much beer. He was a cautionary tale, although no one could quite agree what his tale cautioned against. Stan wouldn’t have told them- he hated it when anyone mentioned Stanley.  
Daisy looked at him.  
“Grant? Didn’t you have an uncle named Stanley?”  
“He’s dead. He died thirty years ago. Stan doesn’t talk about him-``unless Stan had   
become delusional, convinced that he was really his dead brother. Unless Stan had told then it was really his twin brother who-  
“Look!” said Mabel “we have pictures!”

Grant needed to think. He needed to process the photos in front of him. It’s true. It was ridiculous. There was his uncle Stan, and there was his uncle Stan again, standing right next to him, six fingered hand on Mabel’s shoulder. That part, at least, is true.   
“A lot happened after that” said Dipper “and before that, but mostly-”  
“Some really messed up things happened,” said Mabel. “And it was really scary, and the   
world sorta ended for a bit” She squeezed Dipper’s hand “And yeah, that was-”   
“That was hard”

“Mabel, Dipper-” said Daisy “I don’t know what to say,”   
“Thank you for telling us what happened,” said Grant. Daisy looked surprised. “It seems- I know it seems unbelievable, but-” There was no argument in favor of believing them, no way to make it seem reasonable. What they were telling him was impossible. “I trust you”  
They smiled.   
“Grant” said Daisy.   
It took a tour through Mabel’s scrapbook and a call to the elder Pines twins to convince her, and several more days for them both to process it.   
“How is this even-” Daisy asked, head in her hands “I wish-”   
“They want to go back,” said Grant. Daisy groaned.   
“I mean, I thought- I thought if they told us we would know what to do”  
“I know. But… we can figure it out. I think. You’ve been doing research?”   
She nodded. “They’ve agreed to talk to a therapist. I’m trying to find someone prepared for their… unique situation”  
“I think they’ll be ok” he said. Daisy smiled softly. “Eventually, I mean. They have each other”


End file.
